Document processing facilities often use high speed document processing machines such as sorters, to sort and direct mail items appropriately to one or more mail bins for distribution. Various types or stages of processing may occur during sorting of the mail items as they are transported at high speeds along a transport path of the sorter via a system of mechanized pulleys, levers and rollers. Such processes may include, but are not limited to imaging of each mail item at various moments of transport, interpretation of address components (e.g., recipient addresses, ZIP codes, barcodes) based on the image as marked upon the mail items for enabling association of each mail item with a sort scheme, printing upon the mail item, application of labels, opening or cutting of the mail item, etc. Generally, these processes are coordinated by one or more computers operating in connection with the sorter. In a multi-sorter environment, where a mailing is distributed for processing amongst multiple sorters, a server may act as a central administrator of sorter activity, i.e. facilitating data exchange, managing job scheduling and processing, coordinating sort schemes amongst sorter devices, etc.
The common goal of any sort operation is to arrange a plurality of disparate mail items into mail groups that conform to defined sort criteria, such as the arrangement of mail items into groups according to postal authority standards. Generally, the postal grouping to which a mail item belongs is based on the delivery point identifiers indicated upon the mail item, such as the ZIP Code designation, address data, etc. Other factors regarding the mail item, such as weight class or postage application may further affect how it is classified by the postal authority and hence delivered via the postal network. Regardless of classification, however, a single postal grouping (or postal sort group) may include mail items possessing a plurality of delivery point identifiers or only one (e.g., one or more ZIP Code designations). Sort processing of disparate mail items into mail groupings associated by common postal authority recognized delivery point identifiers leads to increased postal processing and postal authority work sharing discounts. Specifically, postal sort groups may be defined in a sorting operation to sort mail items into postal sort groups that are acceptable to the postal authority and/or enable the mail owner to receive discounts.
Despite being optimized for processing mail items into postal sort groups as described above, document processing devices such as sorters are quite inept at maintaining data that distinctly associates a particular mail item with a postal sort group. Consequently, postal authority documentation regarding a postal sort group is not able to reflect the relationship between the postal sort group and the mail items that may belong to that group.
Specifically, it is difficult to precisely track an individual mail item through or across one or more document processing systems into a respective sort group, whether that sort group be defined according to postal regulations, physical characteristics, associated functions performed on or to be performed on the item, the identity of the originator of the mail item, fiscal attributes associated with the mail item, etc.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method directly associating a mail item with its designated postal sort group and tracking the mail item in a document processing system.